


half of my soul

by mostlikelydefinentlymad



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Returns, M/M, Steve Rogers Feels, Stucky - Freeform, fluff and feels with none of the angst, post winter soldier, sequel to But I had a date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 11:26:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4744562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostlikelydefinentlymad/pseuds/mostlikelydefinentlymad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is 2015 when Steve at last gets that date with Bucky - sequel to "But I had a date"</p><p>{He is half of my soul, as the poets say.}</p>
            </blockquote>





	half of my soul

**Author's Note:**

> FIRST HALF of this story: http://archiveofourown.org/works/4738526
> 
> thanks to Gabby who wanted a happier ending for our boys, here you go <3

Brooklyn, New York

October 2015

Outside of Steve's window (in a moderate apartment furnished with a 1940s fridge, earthy browns and greens, books in every corner, war bond posters tacked to the wall, a meager collection of salvaged photo's in tarnished frames and a shield safely resting on an armchair just in case) the sky was gray and foreboding with claps of thunder in the distance and the promise of rain. He'd been planning on going to the gym but decided it wasn't worth it. He settled for watching the first fat drops of rain slide down the windowpane instead and he wished for stars - a clear night with a velvet sky and Bucky in his arms in a flimsy tent that felt more like home than the nearly empty apartment he'd left behind when Bucky had shipped out ages ago. He'd yet to find home since then.

The phone rang, shaking him out of his own head. He slid the little bar along its front and heard Sam's voice on the other end - he always seemed to call at the right time.

"Hey man, we down for a run tomorrow if it's not raining cats and dogs?"  Sam had followed him back to New York and his friendship meant more to Steve than he'd ever know. He, like Bucky, was the other side of the coin. He was logic and reason with a side of pent up feelings where Steve was nothing but seething passion and repressed emotion. He needed that balance.

"Yeah, sounds good," Steve paced the living room as he spoke and nearly asked Sam to come over and keep him company before he gave into the urge to do something reckless - to feel alive only the solution to that was close enough to touch yet too far away. It was not the war or saving the world, it was not danger and fist fights in a dirty alley. It was a cocky grin and shoulder length brown hair tied back with a hair elastic. He was an addict - always had been. He'd barely lasted the amount of time it took to get through basic training and travel from place to place entertaining families and the elderly who needed something to believe in before rushing onto a plane and jumping right behind enemy lines in need of his drug - the person who made life worth living.

"Have you talked to him today?," Sam questioned, concerned.

Bucky had been back and coherent for three months (remembering things from the past - shards of a former life and not all of them were pleasant. his latest had been the realization that he never got to say goodbye to his mother before she passed) but distant at times. With Sam's help they'd moved him into an apartment right across from Steve's and furnished it with comfortable furniture in warm colors and modern amenities. Where Steve still preferred older appliances that reminded him of a more simple time, Bucky chose basic modern devices.

"He came out to get the paper earlier but that's about it," Steve replied with a heavy sigh.

"You ever thought about going over there? Not to put words in his mouth but he probably feels like hes a burden."

Steve hadn't thought of that before - he should have. He knew Bucky better than anyone and even when he'd gotten sick when they were kids he tried to hide it and blame it on the frigid weather and drafty windows, blame it on anything and everything if it meant not having to admit to Steve that he was under the weather. He'd always saw himself as the one to protect Steve and balked at any attempt for Steve to return the favor - he'd gotten better at that...right before he fell and took Steve's entire world with him.

Steve was silent for a moment - mulling it over.

"Alright man I got a leaky ceiling that needs a bucket under it. Go over there, maybe bring some coffee and talk to him. It's physically painful watching the two of you dance around one another."

"I'll do that, thank you Sam."

"No problem."  With that Sam disconnected and Steve felt nervous - it was irrational. This was Bucky. _His_ Bucky. The same man he'd mourned for two long years and thanked the heavens for even as Bucky tried to kill him because surely it must be fate; the two of them ending up in a decade they didn't belong to,  _together._ Death had no hold on either of them nor did time.

 

Taking a deep breath he crossed the hallway and lightly tapped on Bucky's door. Outside the thunder continued to clash and the rain picked up, hitting the tin roof of the apartments with small beats that sounded like the washing away of past errors and ages of unspoken pain.

He knocked once and then twice before deciding to retreat to his apartment - just as he was about to turn the knob he heard a door creak behind him.

"Steve?" Bucky's hair was disheveled and untamed, gray t-shirt rumpled with dark jeans pooling over bare feet. He could be standing there in a fuzzy bathrobe and slippers and he'd still set Steve's pulse to pounding and his chest aching.

"I thought I'd drop by for a visit. Haven't saw you in awhile," Steve replied with a shrug as if he wasn't standing at Bucky's doorstoop with pleading eyes and his heart on his sleeve. Three days. It had only been three days and he was craving - a desperate man who would do anything for love.

"Don't just stand out there, come in," Bucky stood aside as Steve brushed past him into the apartment. With its soft yellows, warm burnt reds and overflowing laundry baskets here and there it felt like home. _No._ Home was not a place - home was the person who lived within these four walls.

Steve sank down into a soft chocolate brown armchair that smelled like Bucky's shampoo - lavender and mint. _It must be his favorite chair_. It was positioned halfway between the window (with blinds pulled up to see the rain) and the coffee table - separated from the couch.

Bucky perched on the edge of the coffee table where most people would prefer a comfortable couch. He sat with back straight and eyes staring out at the window, jerking every so often when the thunder boomed. 

"Hey Buck -- do you remember that last night before....before...," even all these years later Steve couldn't bring himself to say it -  _fell, died, took half of my soul with you._

He cleared his throat and tried once more as Bucky stared back at him curiously - it was nice to see emotion in those blue eyes.

"The tent...you said you wanted to see the stars and you'd been drinking. We...I promised you a date." He quickly looked away and drew his gaze to the window instead.

Bucky furrowed his brows and focused on a soft gray wall - he was digging around in his head for that particular memory. It was fuzzy but he found it. His skin warmed at the thought of that night - he'd kissed Steve with wild abandon and it hadn't gone further than that. No, they'd been saving the rest for after the war ended. They'd planned on celebrating and - and...dancing. 

"A date," Bucky confirmed, still thinking. 

Steve nodded and moved to stand in front of the window - he felt himself blushing. God...after all these decades Bucky Barnes still turned him into a skinny nineteen year old kid with nothing but a beautiful brown haired boy - the best thing in his life. 

"I believe -," Bucky began as he followed Steve to the window and stood behind him - not touching but wanting to. "You promised me a dance. You're late."

Steve smiled hard enough to make his cheeks ache as he turned around - "Lil bit."

Bucky grinned back and it was all Steve could do to not tear up at the sight of it. He'd only saw it twice at the most since Bucky's return and he hadn't realized how much he'd missed the sound of Bucky's voice, the tilt of a lopsided grin, the glint in his eye that had only recently made an appearance.

"You gonna step all over my toes? I don't have any shoes on so you need to warn me in advance," Bucky teased as he looked down at his bare feet and rocked slightly against the wood floor. That was the one thing that had remained a constant even when they wiped him - how he'd rock gently on his heels when he was nervous or happy. Right now he was both. Steve wasn't exactly the best at picking up on the obvious - the man spent half his life missing how utterly mad Bucky was over him. He wondered what tipped the scales in his favor this time. Sam perhaps. He made the best intermediate - gently nudging the two of them along without it being obvious what he was doing. Bucky was grateful - if it were left up to the two of them they'd do this little song and dance - you look at me and I look away - deal for the rest of their lives.

"Depends on who gets to lead," Steve stepped forward, cautiously as if he were afraid Bucky would bolt at any given moment. Fat chance of that - now that Bucky had found that something he'd felt was missing - even when he'd had nothing to go on - he wasn't letting it go. He matched his step until they were close enough to reach out and take what he wanted. He did not. He knew what it felt like to have every choice, every decision stripped from you and he wouldn't do that to Steve.

"What do you say? You wanna dance?" Bucky stood with arms at his side, waiting.

"I guess so, I mean I _have_ been waiting ages for your sorry butt to show up," Steve teased. It almost felt like old times, taking jabs at one another as a way of saying _I love you more than words._ Those three words were always too final, too heavy.

"Me? If I recall correctly and I don't know if I do... _you're_ the one who's late," Bucky reached a timid hand out and tangled Steve's in his own, leaving it loose enough to allow Steve to pull away if he wanted to.

He did not.

"You're the jerk who stood me up for...lets see," Steve cocked his head to the side as if he were calculating all the hours, seconds, minutes since that night in a stuffy tent under the stars. "72 years."

Bucky smirked as Steve tightened his grip. "Yeah? It's only 'cause I wanted to see if you thought I was really worth it or not." He aimed for light and teasing but it came out more broken than he'd intended. That night was the only one he had where he'd felt that this love wasn't one sided. He'd clung to that memory and they'd erased it along with every trace of Steve - still when he was out of the ice for too long it resurfaced - fuzzy but present, clearly an important memory that refused to go away.

Steve looked down at his feet as if he were ashamed - as if he were the one to blame. Bucky wasn't going to have any of that. Not when it had taken them ages to get back to this point. He would fix this, he would undo whatever damage he'd done because dammit he always managed to fuck things up but before he could -

"You were always worth it Buck," Steve said quietly, eyes still staring at his feet and then Bucky's - each toe just as he'd remembered including the slightly crooked one on the left side where he'd broken his pinky toe in a fight, defending Steve of course.

"We'll see if you still say that after you've seen my dancin' skills, they're rusty."  Anytime Steve got too close Bucky had always put up his walls again - he was the very best at derailing a sentimental moment.

It worked - Steve gave him a tiny smile and squeezed his hand.

"We gonna dance or not?," Bucky goaded.

"Music?"

"Don't need it. They're playin' our song," Bucky countered as he pointed to the window where rain continued to pelt the windowpane but the thunder had ceased.

Steve blushed and wrapped an arm around Bucky's waist.

"No no no, none of that. _I'm_ the lead, remember? You were always the girl," Bucky removed Steve's hand and gingerly placed it on his shoulder and clasped the other tightly.

"Thought I'd did my time as the woman, you ever gonna let me lead?"

"Nope," Bucky grinned and placed a hand at the small of Steve's back, tugged him in close and it was 1944 all over again with the warmth of Steve's body against his own and the feel of his hot breath on Bucky's neck.

"The last time we danced you were the shorter one," Bucky remarked. It was 1937 and he'd used the excuse of Steve's lackluster dancing skills in order to touch him, to cradle him in his arms and pretend if even for a moment that they could have this.

"Does that mean I get to lead?"

Bucky laughed and it felt freeing - the sound bubbling from his chest and lighting up his eyes. "You're always gonna be the gal."

Steve looked at him as if he was his everything - what if he couldn't be that for him?

"Don't look at me like that," Bucky chided sadly.

"Like what?"

"Like I'm your everything."

Steve teared up and squeezed his hand - "You're an idiot."

"Why's that?," Bucky questioned as he began to gently sway them from side to side, chest to chest.

"Bucky Barnes you've gotta be the most oblivious man on earth. You've always been my everything."

Bucky shook his head and felt like crying for the first time in weeks - he'd spent the majority of the 3 months he'd been back sobbing as memories - both good and inky black came back and haunted him.

"You can't mean that."

Steve stopped dancing and cupped his face - "Yes I can, every word."

Bucky drifted away - memories of sticky Summers in Steve's mothers cramped apartment with a skinny body beside of his own, skin touching despite the heat as he weaved together stories and history in the few classes they hadn't shared and intense blue eyes meeting his own before darting away, double dates with Steve lagging behind and the two of them checking out early with the excuse that Steve wasn't feeling well, of the first few months after Steve had moved in with him and his heart had never felt so full - how he'd set up endless double dates in hopes that it would drown every urge and longing - kissed a dozen girls and did his best not to appear disappointed when he pulled back to see that they weren't floppy blonde bangs falling messily over a pale forehead with eyes the color of the sky - how Steve would give him the silent treatment for days after and wouldn't explain why. Scattered memories of a long night at the bar and the hopeless and urgent need to claim Steve for himself rather than letting the beautiful woman in a red dress take him away - 'course he'd known it that night but somewhere along the line the memory had blurred and he never could figure out how they got from her wanting to dance with Steve (though it was much more than that) to the tent after.

It all made perfect sense now.

"You mean you...? Then?"

Steve nodded and caressed Bucky's cheek with his thumb. "Do you think I'd wait this long for a date with anyone else?"

Bucky laughed quietly and pressed a tongue against his upper lip - _I will not cry, I will not._ "Jesus Christ Steve you shoulda said something. I spent years thinking..."

"You got it all wrong. You had dates and girls - I had _you."_ Steve's only regret was waiting 72 years. 

"Sorry 'bout that. I never could figure out why they didn't see in you what I did."

"Buck...they didn't see it because they weren't...they weren't in love with me. I didn't want them. Don't you understand? I ran off," Steve stammered.

"You're not gonna run off from this one are you?"

"Never."

With that the floodgates opened and soft tears like rain sliding down a transparent window streaked down Bucky's cheeks. All these years Steve had been his and he hadn't even realized it.

Steve brushed away the tears as his own eyes watered over - the two of them were really something. Two men in a decade they didn't belong in with ages of repressed emotions painting murals on their cheeks and an entire lifetime of love.

"Seems I've ruined our date," sobbed Bucky as Steve pulled him against his chest and rocked them from side to side.

"We're dancing aren't we?," Steve sniffled and buried his head in Bucky's neck.

Bucky nodded against Steve's chest and held on as tight as he could - as if he were terrified that he might wake up on a table with Zola standing over him shredding the one photo he had of he and Steve. _This is mine. You can't have him - not this time. _Steve was the one thing in this terrible world that made sense - that he could call his own.

"Think you owe me a kiss," Steve mumbled as he pressed a kiss to the side of Bucky's neck.

Bucky edged back enough to look at Steve - took in watery blue eyes the color of the sky and cheeks pink from crying - _my Steve. isn't he beautiful? he is half of my soul, as the poets say._

Steve reached up to cup Bucky's face once more - the same way he'd did  long ago in an exploding Hydra building when there was no time to drag him in for a "You're amazing you're amazing God you're my everything" kiss though he wanted to so bad he could taste it.

The first kiss was gentle - testing the waters in case Steve changed his mind. Followed by raw passion and heat - the taste of Steve's lips against his own, his tongue and how it rubbed against Bucky's in the most sensual way, the grip of his hands now curving around Bucky's hips hard enough to leave bruises, the hungry desperation of slick lips and bodies clinging to one another mixing the divine present and faded yesterdays - it was coming back to life under Steve's fingertips and the taste of salt on his skin as Bucky licked a path across his collarbone.

It was 1944 and 2015 all at once and Frank Sinatra belting out [_I'll Never Smile Again_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4738526)in Bucky's head with the pitter patter of raindrops.

"I love you I love you I love you," Steve repeated the words like they were his salvation, whispered against the curve of a jaw and lips pink from kissing.

"Oh God I loved you so much Steve you've got no idea. I always have," Bucky said breathily, between kisses.

Steve gently sucked purple bruises on Bucky's neck where it met his shoulder before moving to tug Bucky's shirt over his head and press tiny kisses along the scarring where flesh met metal. Bucky flinched at first - expecting Steve to recoil with horror. He did not.

"I love...all of this," he kissed every inch of the puckered skin - "And this," turned his attention to Bucky's chest - kissed a trail down his torso. "Every inch of _you._ "

Bucky sucked in a deep breath and tugged Steve up for a heated kiss before leading him over to the chocolate brown sofa that was, thankfully, big enough for two if those bodies happened to lie on top of one another and they did.

 

Two hours later they lay sated and exhausted with sweat dampened skin and bruises on both their necks - on the floor. Somewhere in between passionate kisses, professions of love and frenzied removing of clothes they'd ended up there.

Steve ran his fingers through Bucky's hair as he lay curled up against him and grinned - "Was this date worth waiting for?"

Bucky scoffed - "Don't know about you but I coulda waited a couple more years."

Steve pinched his arm hard and laughed - "You're still a jerk."

Bucky grinned and pinched right back with his metal hand no less - Steve shot him a look but still had a wide smile on his face. "You're still a punk."

 

They spent the next few days at Bucky's apartment - gradually dragging over clothes and Steve's shield of course.

Steve's phone rang just as they were tugging another box over -

"What happened to that run we were going to go on?," Sam asked on the other end.

"Umm something came up." Bucky giggled in the background - Steve noted that his sense of humor hadn't changed in all those years. He'd always have his mind in the gutter.

"Oh I see how it is. Guess you boys finally spit it out," Sam replied and Steve could hear it in his voice - he was grinning.

"No thanks to this one," Bucky said in the background and jabbed Steve in the ribs.

"What like you were gonna say it?," Steve retorted without even bothering to cover the phone.

"Good to see that you got that date - sure took you long enough," Sam remarked.

"You know...there's a vacant apartment across from us. You could move in," Steve said.

"Yours?"

"Don't need it anymore."

"We're horrible at words Sam you gotta take the place or we'll never -," Bucky began with a teasing voice before Steve interrupted him with a wet kiss.

"I heard that. I'll think about it _if_ the two of you keep it to yourselves. A thank you is more than enough," Sam chided. 

"Thank you Sam!," Bucky said loudly, leaning into the phone that Steve was still holding.

Sam grimaced and held the phone out for a moment. "Thank you Sam, let us repay you by being your new neighbors," Steve said with a grin. Before Bucky came back into Steve's life Sam couldn't remember the last time the man had really smiled and meant it. They were good for one another - better than good.

"Fine you win but if either of you wake me up on the weekends I will get you back."

Bucky let out a woop! in the background and Sam couldn't help the wide grin on his face - they deserved this and he'd been the one to make it happen.

"We'll go on that run tomorrow and work on moving you in," Steve said with a muffled voice. Sam did not want to know, nope.

"I'll let you two get back to...whatever it was you were doing - don't tell me."

Steve laughed - a genuine sound and Sam could nearly feel his happiness through the phone. "Packing, we were packing."

Bucky leaned into the phone again - "Don't listen to him, we weren't."

Steve retorted - "We _were._ Honestly. I swear."

"I'm going now," Sam replied, laughing.

"See you tomorrow Sam."

 

They had all the time in the world for dates now.

**Author's Note:**

> credit for the "don't look at me like that" "like what?" "like I'm your everything" to whomever came up with it.
> 
> title is from The Song of Achilles because these two are a modern day reincarnation of them basically.


End file.
